While we are awaiting the arrival of the first LTO-9 tapes, US-based OWC has unveiled an LTO-8 tape drive called the Mercury Pro LTO - and it stands out for a number of reasons.
It is one of the few that is equipped with a Thunderbolt-3 port (two actually) and can even charge a laptop (up to 85W) and connect to an 8K monitor or docking station.
For comparison, the competition tends to have an SAS (serial-attached SCSI) interface, which is popular in enterprise and large businesses but not amongst prosumers.
- Here's our list of the best cloud backup services around
- We've built a list of the best cloud storage services right now
- Check out our list of the best free cloud backup services available
There’s also a useful staging feature that allows you to add an SSD or HDD of your own to enhance your workflow and for extra backup capacity.
Speaking of capacity, each tape offers a native capacity of 12TB with 30TB compressed storage (using an industry-wide standard compression ratio of 2.5:1). Native transfer rates can reach 360MBps native or up to 900MBps compressed. And as for pricing, you can get LTO-8 tapes for less than $100.
The OWC Mercury Pro LTO tape drive retails for $4,499 (roughly £3,500/AU$6,300) without any staging drive, but with OWC’s myLTO software, a free LTO-8 tape and a cleaning tape.
It is significantly more expensive than comparable devices, but is worth the extra premium given the additional features it offers, such as a 5-year warranty and lifetime support.
OWC has confirmed that the drive should be upgradable to LTO-9, which offers 50% extra capacity and much higher sustained transfer rates, assuming the form factors and interfaces remain the same.
- Check out our list of the best external hard drives out there
Bear in mind
- If this product is unavailable in your region, you may need to use a specialist parcel forwarding service.
- If you've managed to get hold of a cheaper product with equivalent specifications, in stock and brand new, let us know and we'll tip our hat to you.
